The Book of Duels Page 8
Cora and Vivian continue to wrestle, both now nude, and they spill onto the sofa like champagne outflowing its flute and in a flash I uncover the lens and shoot their picture even though I know full well the glass will not contain their image any more than our bodies can hold our souls and the portrait will be a blur, a pale smear like smoke rising dark against a darker wall or like cotton sheers billowing in an open window, because nothing here ever lasts.
Shanks in the Courtyard: Ramirez v. Nu’man
In the Yard of the “Walls” Unit, DOC Facility, Huntsville, Texas,
February 13, 1962
Miguel Ramirez, 21,
d.i.n. 59-68-11, Convicted of Manslaughter, Serving Twenty to Life
In last fall’s rodeo, during the Hard Money Event, I went between the bull’s horns to grab the cash bag while two other boys got gored and carted off in the old meat wagon—I took the 1,500 bucks and the wild-headed applause of forty thousand strong—since then every swinging dick in here has asked me for stamp money or fags, candy bars or stag rags—I been racking up favors enough to be mayor of this joint, ’cept from this punk here who runs the commissary, how I knew he’s the one that ganked my dough—I can’t let him go with that, so I got my boy D-Train to make me a shank wrapped at the base in shoe lace and boxing tape and I been just waiting to find him alone in the yard—there he is now, bow-headed and kneeling on some A-rab-looking rug, and though the sun is out, ice still clings thick on the chain-link fence and when it catches the light, the razor wire looks dead-on like glass and my breath twists from my lips like the cigarette smoke that rose out Papi’s mouth the one and only time I saw him—he was leaning against Nguyen’s liquor store with his hair creamed into waves, ’stache trimmed pencil thin, dark skin peppered with darker freckles—we two looked like tomcat and older tomcat—I had all these things I wanted to ask or say or to hear him say to me but I gummed up, mouth dry as an old lady’s snatch, and a vomiting sissy feeling seized my guts and my voice shrank so tiny I couldn’t speak—I just stood there like a dummy till this white gal came out, a pint in a brown bag, and took the Slim cherried between her thin lips and put it right into his gold-tooth smile and he sucked as deep as I do now to steady my nerves and he blew circles past me, like I circle this thieving punk here, and Papi winked at me, as this metal winks in sunlight, and then he was gone and that was the end of me for him—but for me, it was just the start: I went home and put my thumbs into the throat of the sleeping man who’d called himself my dad for eighteen brutal years—
And I have to live forever knowing I strangled the wrong motherfucker.
Muhtady Nu’man (a.k.a. Ant’Juan White), 38, d.i.n. 48-12-67,
Convert to Islam, Convicted of Murder, Serving Life without Parole
I am chaste, I am devout, and I have no doubt that Allah is love—He makes the grass green and the sky blue—though they have bound my body behind bars, my mind is free from this racist power structure—survived in here eleven years and kept clean, studied my Qur’an, and lived one day at a time—converted to the True Way when I learned what a trap it is to be black in America—tried to hip youngblood to this knowledge but he called me eight shades of nigger—his slave mind holds him like a harness—he’s sworn to take my life over the white man’s money that his own braggarty boys robbed him of one dollar at a time—my ablutions performed, I stand, Sami ‘allâhu-liman amidah. Rabbana wa laka-l-amd—we brothers have killed enough of each other, still I stole a soup spoon from the staff dining hall, filed it down on my cell wall till the handle was needle sharp, packed the bowl full of clay, wrapped it in upholstery for a better grip, and wear it stuffed inside my waistband where it presses against my belly as I face Mecca for the second time today—his shadow runs cold on my side and I spin, shank in hand—he gouges my neck and I can’t work my jaw or hands, my weapon is gone and I collapse and think of Allah—Cry your tears on me, O Lord, Your humble, faithful servant, but there is only white clouds in a cold blue sky and I am forsaken: there’s nothing in life but cloud and cold sky and this last regret:
I am a thieving junkie in an alley off Liberty Street—I hide behind a Dumpster in a spitting rain, like a rat pressed greasy-backed against a brick wall, holding some old lady’s vinyl purse—above me there’s a woman on a covered balcony and she’s missing both her hands, nubs alone, yet her eyes shine as stars—she is the Nubian beauty of sculpted shoulders and long black legs—I stand from my shadow and she looks down on me and I am high and low at once—in her eyes I see my future until there is no more of it but I do not speak and now I am dead in this yard—yet her eyes look down upon me once again and I see she is Allah’s messenger and she is whole again, sent to make me whole as well, and her godly hands part the sky in two like veils drawn back and she is love and God is love and she is calling me to Heaven to be amid love forever and I am gone.
Douglas Wascom, 33,
Prison Guard for the Last Seven Years
These men have committed murder before and I figure one will kill at least one man more but if I were in charge of being in charge I’d set em both in Old Sparky’s lap, flip the switch, and light em up, but it looks like they’ve gone and killed each other already and a circus erupts, two gangs wilding like the time Johnny Cash played here and sang that line, I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die, and the men got so jazzed they damn near rioted, blacks and whites alike howling and shoving and just like then I go to swinging my baton, clipping hamstrings and smacking skulls, when the stick bounces off bone, it vibrates through my knuckles and wrists and into my shoulder jambs—I find myself alone at the center of the sour-smelling fray, my billy club useless as a wet match with bodies pressed against me and where are the other guards?—I hear their whistles far off bleating lame as lambs in the field, hear a shank click my spine, a tiny sound like the lock on a window turning—the Dominican stands before me dumb, a shank jammed in his tiny left ear—I feel the blades biting me all over now and I flop to my knees, hold my arms up for mercy, steam rises from my wounds, blood rolls over my sleeves, and a flood of images, as if from a Kodak carousel, flashes before me:
Caught light in moving glass—jump blues on the crackling radio—Pa in my window, holding a finger to his lips—me in footy pajamas padding behind him—the hallway lined with clocks and black and white photos of people I’d never meet—the dark shadow with Ma in bed—a burnt sugar smell—the name, Luke, in Ma’s mouth—my neck hair standing on end like electric peppermint and the wind blowing the curtains about like drunken dancers—a pistol miraculously in Pa’s hand—I lie beside this dead Muslim with his dead Muslim eyes staring deadly at me, our blood soaking into the same rug—the pistol roaring—smoke and dim moonlight in the window frame—Johnny Cash—Ma screaming on the front porch, her nakedness covered in a bloody sheet—Pa in handcuffs and in that squad car—a dead man in the bed—Ma dead now from her vodka and pills—and me in a prison—I’m soon to join them all, my blood on this holy rug—my eyes on that man’s eyes—my eyes on this man’s eyes—my, oh my oh my.
Code of Conduct: Frato v. Greene
In White City Park Beach, Cleveland, Ohio,
November 26, 1971
“Big” Mike Frato, 37,
Garbage Man, Husband, & Father
Me and Danny go way back, used to be best pals, named my son after him and he called his Mike after me, but I didn’t work my fat ass off day and night to build a company so his goons could strong-arm me, take my hard-earned money, and not kick a thing back—I got fourteen kids to feed and now he wants to be one mouth more, but it ain’t Danny’s mouth got me riding shotgun with a pistol in Palladino’s Riviera, creeping up behind him as he jogs in this park, my hand hanging out the window, wind burning my knuckles a deep purple—the cracked vinyl dashboard crimson against the white exterior of the car and the world and the sky—I told Danny No, and Hell no, so last month he sent Art, his right-hand man, to blow up my house with a bomb, but Art got the chickenshits and ratted me their plan, and he
must have spilled to Danny too, because three nights later Art exploded all over my Susan’s car, our children rattled from their nearby sleep—blew one of Art’s shoes into our neighbor’s Douglas fir and it hung there like some sort of Christmas ornament.
I’ve always loved the trash business, moving what’s unwanted to somewhere far off—in my first year driving a garbage truck I found a dead guy’s maggot-filled corpse in the hopper—I told the cops and they pinned it on some made guy from Youngstown and my dad said, Don’t go getting your nose all wet, and, A dead man ain’t got no name, but what does he know about being a man, that deadbeat who ditched us ten kids and now comes groveling for cash once or twice a year—my mom, she worked three jobs to keep us under one roof and always told me, A real man don’t need no gang because he can always do for himself.
“Unkillable” Danny Greene, 38,
USMC, Gang Leader, & Single Father
Five hundred push-ups, five hundred sit-ups, two hundred pull-ups, and enough squats to burn my thighs and now I’ll run ten miles more—I need to punish myself so I can punish others—and later the Bushmills will taste even better as it burns the back of my throat—the whisky’s my final vice—I’ve gone vegan except for the fish-oil pills, and instead of cigs, there’s tofu and spinach, beans and carrots, and there’s no more speed just exercise and vitamins and the thrills of fists and bones—keep the pasta away, stay slim and strong and flexible, because you have to be nimble, Danny boy, in this line of work—stay strong as my ancestors, those Celtic warriors, ’cause soon as I rest some Guinea’s gonna put his bullet through my ear or a bomb in my car—my Saint Jude medal flapping against my Adam’s apple can protect me only so far—breathe, man, fill your lungs with the searing air and feel the blood in your veins—the thin snow crunches under my sneakers, the wind burns my face red, I am freezing and winter’s only just begun—my lips are chapped and I remember, as a longshoreman, the pain of shoveling tens of thousands of pounds of grain in bitter cold like this, until I saw the sit-down job was the way for me—in a window up on the hill I see an Irish angel, stark red hair and emerald negligee, and she is staring straight at me and she will be my guardian as sure as my name is the Unkillable Danny Greene.
I hear a car humming behind me—I know there’s someone in it who wants to see me dead but good luck with that, lads, because I may have been born with no name, “Baby Greene” it says on my birth receipt, but damn it all if I haven’t earned my name by now—I spring through a row of boxwood bushes on the side of the road, hit the ice-hard ground, and duck and roll as they trained me in the Corps, pull the piece from my waistband, and come up firing—yes I believe in charm and luck and a host of superstitions, but sometimes you have to make things happen your own damn self—I pushed the button on Art’s bomb but I was around the corner when it went off, so maybe it was bad timing or faulty wiring or his own fuckup—staring at these two dead men now, my heart racing but my hand steady as a shillelagh, I know I’ve just killed another close friend but who wouldn’t call either self-defense?
Cathy Summerall, 36,
Unemployed, Single, & Mother of One
He’s coming up the hill toward me, same as every morning, nine o’clock sharp, with that body and them muscles and his butt tight in green track pants, you bet I’m gonna watch him run—the snow falls all around but never seems to touch him—his breath comes in clouds and those ruddy cheeks and strawberry-blond hair remind me so much of Joey and his beautiful mechanic hands, always black-nailed and smelling of diesel, resting on my shoulders, a comfort at my mother’s grave, the press of those hands on my hands as we buried my father, and later, he would squeeze my entire bicep in one hand and when he’d let go, the blood would rush to my skin and I would immediately miss his touch—Joey’s lips on my lips deep kissing in White City Park Beach, the feeling of him spooned up against me, his hand cupping my growing belly—little Tyson swelling in my body, pressing against my bladder, and the pressure of giving birth, a pain beyond pain that I recall as if through a veil of gauze, and now the pressure of rent due on the first and Joey, that sad sack, doing a hard ten for stealing Snap-on tools from the Triple M—Tyson needs formula and Tyson needs diapers and maybe the rumors about this running man are true, that he gave turkeys to every beat cop in town and two to each orphanage—maybe this Danny Greene can float me a loan for a few bucks, and for his faith and interest I could pay back his interest and faith with a good old-fashion lay.
I’m leaning against my front window, the cool glass against my cheek, when a long car pulls up behind him with a man hanging out the window—Danny does a somersault into the winter gem, and when he comes up, I hear two pops, like swatting flies with a rolled-up newspaper, smoke rises from his pistol like the breath from his lips, and I see holes and spidered lines across the front windshield and blood spattered all over the side of the door and down into the white snow and the car careens into my apartment sign and stops, the horn blaring in the silence, and I am frozen as the ice on Erie, watching Danny lean into the driver’s window, shaking his head grim-like, and he looks up and sees me and I catch myself smiling in the reflection of the glass, the cigarette smoke twirling languid between my two fingers that caress my collarbone and I know the gossip is true—the beatings, the bone breakings, the bombs—I know now he’s going to need me too and now I want him even more.
It’s a Family Affair: Sellers v. Sellers
In Dr. Matthew’s Office for Couple’s Counseling, Dubuque, Iowa,
September 20, 2006
Louise Sellers, 8,
Third-Grade Daughter of Warring Parents
This place smells like Lysol and there are no toys or books and on the one TV they’re showing This Old House and the sorrow sob starts to bobble my chin and I’ve cried all week and no one has cared—not Mommy, not Daddy—because show and tell was Monday and last Sunday night I was sitting in the tub singing “Ducky Duddle” when all of a sudden, Oh gripes, it’s tomorrow, so I hopped from the tub all lickety-split, pruned and wet and sudsy, but Mommy’s door was shut, like always, and Daddy was looking over numbers, not listening to me—I tried to tell him how important the assignment was and all he came up with was our science experiment, which I thought was a dumb idea but what else could I do? He took down from the window sill the glass jar where we kept the carrot chunk and the roots were all white and going everywhere like if an octopus’s legs were made of lightning and it did look pretty cool—You can show them how their food grows; that’s interesting, isn’t it, dear?—I was happy to show it off at school but when the bell rang and I got to class and I pulled the thing out, Marcy Dungee said, Eww, what’s that? and Monica Dowell laughed and Melissa Dunhill said, That looks like your hair, and Misty Duncan snorted and shook her long red curls and pulled a Cloe Bratz doll from her Hannah Montana backpack and Melissa her Game Boy and Monica her new ruby bracelet that sparkled all bedazzled and Marcy her whatever and then Tommy Ewland said, What, are you, like, poor or something? and Marcy said, Ewwwwww, again, but this time with that nose whine she does so good, and my chin started bobbing and I buried my head in my arms down on my cold desktop so no one would see my lips shake—it wasn’t like last year when Tommy’s little brother was run over by the school bus and I made sure everyone saw me crying the most so they’d know I was Tommy’s best friend, and the tears ran down my face and I made a big show of wiping the snot on my velour sleeves and leaving the tears on my face so everyone could see how truly sad I was but this past Monday I felt as if some weird bird had pecked out my guts and I blame it all on my stupid dad and my stupid mom too.
I hear her start to yell and cry and I hop down under the big wooden table and grab my knees and curl them to my chest and rock back and forth like I do at home whenever I am scared—like during big storms or when in the middle of the night you wake up and it’s just too quiet and the only sound you can hear is your own heartbeat and you think, When will this ever end?
Dannyelle Louise Sellers, 32,
> Former Beauty Queen, Current Housewife, & Mother of One
When Billy was president of the Chamber of Commerce and I was on stage in my Aldo heels and Naired legs and a swimsuit so white that my torso glowed at the center of my dark limbs, I was the object of his desire but now he doesn’t even look at me—I know it’s not his fault that he’s never been able to truly see me because, though I was in that pageant, I was not really even there—how could I have been?—I stood on that stage a prancing six-year-old in front of my mother’s armoire, running my hands over the hanging cashmere and rayon and jersey denim dresses and over her sweaters and skirts, the grays and beiges and taupes, and in her bureau drawers among her bras and her panties, frilled and laced, and the black silky slip that I’d put over my towhead locks and let flow down my back like long black hair, and in which I’d swish and sway and say, Oh Captain Smith, save poor pitiful me from this life of a savage—her hard crenellated vibrator came to life in my tiny electric hands with pink-painted nails just as Mother walked into her bedroom—she put both her hands to her mouth as if to stop a smile but she did not smile—Just what do you think you are doing, young lady, she asked—I’m being you, Mom—and she slapped my face to burning—The hell you are—her face was hard and severe and I stammered, I guess, I guess, I’m being Pocahontas?—she slapped me again but harder—You think I’m some kind of goddamn Indian whore? You are nothing but a—